Archive for the ‘transportation’ Category
Maersk Triple-E Ships Get “E’s” for Effort, Expense and Extravagance
Maersk Line, the world’s largest container ship operator, is building a fleet of the world’s largest container vessels—in a deal that includes 10 firm orders and another 20 on option for a total potential cost of $5.7 billion—to transport freight in the Asia-Europe trade.
The Danish company is calling these mega-ships—each capable of carrying the equivalent of 18,000 twenty-foot containers—the Triple-E. Maersk says that is for economy of scale, energy efficiency and environmentally improved.
The latter item is a major marketing point, especially for shippers with sustainability and environmental commitments for their products and supply chains. Maersk contends that the ships will bring significant environmental improvements in terms of reduced emissions to the shipping table. Think of it as a more is less approach. The company claims the vessels will produce “the lowest possible amount of CO2 emissions — an astonishing 50 percent less CO2 per container moved than the industry average on the Asia–Europe trade.” Read the rest of this entry »
Seattle port gets scrappy
Not scrappy in the way one might think—this is Seattle after all and this town is anything but scrappy even on a bad day. But the Port of Seattle is going scrap-happy about trucks.
The port launched its on-line program aimed at registering newer, cleaner drayage trucks that access its container terminals on Jan. 1. As of that date all port drayage trucks entering Seattle’s terminals must adhere to new Clean Truck Program Guidelines.
Requirements include:
- All trucks must have model-year 1994 or newer engines.
- All trucks must be registered in the Port’s Drayage Truck Registry and display the Green Gateway sticker on the driver’s side door.
The program is designed to support the goals of the Northwest Ports Clean Air Strategy, which aims to lower emissions from all sectors of maritime operations. So far, the port says more than 5,929 trucks and over 1,100 trucking companies and truck owners are registered in the Drayage Truck Registry (DTR).
Registration can be done online or in person at the Port of Seattle’s Drayage Truck Registry office located at the Terminal 5 CFS Building, 3443 West Marginal Way SW. Hours are 7:00 am to 3:30 pm.
Drayage trucks with engines older than model-year 1994 may be eligible for a $5,000 “bounty” through the ScRAPS Program (Scrappage and Retrofits for Air in Puget Sound). For more information, contact: Cascade Sierra Solutions, 200 SW Michigan Street, Seattle, WA 98108, 206-988-8893. Since the program began in 2009, 269 trucks have been scrapped.
The Port of Tacoma has a similar clean-truck program and scrapping plan in place. Tacoma maintains a database of trucks serving its port, with information on truck age and owner information. Tacoma’s drayage fleet numbered nearly 3100 at the end of 2009.
Although fairly new, the programs at Tacoma and Seattle, including the idea of incentive payments to get the older drays off of port roads, shows that a market-based, collaborative approach to cleaning-up truck emissions makes good and sustainable business sense.
Have a sustainable, renewable New Year
This is the time of year when writers, journalists, bloggers or whatever we scribblers have become in an age where communication and connection occurs mostly in 140-word snippets or less take a look back and ahead. Top Ten lists abound; crystal ball thumb-sucking dots the landscape and cyberspace.
I’ll leave that listing and prediction stuff (mostly) to the experts, or at least to those who have managed to stay gainfully and reliably employed over the last 12 months. They must have greater insight, or skills or something.
I do have some observations, for what they are worth:
- The usual word to describe the recovery is fragile but I prefer chimerical. Corporate profits are rebounding, Wall Street’s escape act was hugely successful and Republicans proved once again that America’s short-term memory disorder is firmly entrenched and that lies, inaccuracies, misrepresentations, denials, polarization and fear-mongering is a winning strategy. Well, winning for them – for many the economic recovery is mostly non-existent: unemployment hovers stubbornly around 10 percent; wages continue their decline; the housing market remains in the toilet; energy costs are increasing; the stranglehold of Big Oil and Big Coal continues unabated.
- Whatever the emerging ‘new normal’ is, it’s not much fun – it’s really pretty raw, stressful and uncertain.
- On a personal note: Freelancing should never be construed as working for free! OK? Are we clear?
- Environmentally-speaking, when electric vehicles hit the market in a major and consumer-friendly way—and one, the Chevy Volt, wins Motor Trend’s Car of the Year Award—that is stunning and hopeful progress.
- Environmentally-speaking, when a disaster like the Deepwater Horizon occurs and little to nothing occurs to change our dependence on fossil fuel, or regulation of Big Oil, that is stunning and disturbing progress of an entirely different sort.
So ‘here’s to the new boss, same as the old boss.’
Here’s to the New Year, same as the Old Year.
PNW Trifecta: Shore power at Tacoma, FAA grant for Sea-Tac, EPA award for Portland
It was a very good week indeed for green and Pacific Northwest—the PNW’s first cargo ship plugged into shore power at the Port of Tacoma, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport received an $18 million environmental grant and the Port of Portland received a 2010 Green Power Leadership Award from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Here’s the run-down:
- State, federal and Port of Tacoma and Totem Ocean Trailer Express officials flipped the switch on October 27 on the Pacific Northwest’s first cargo ship to run on dockside shore power.
Helped by an EPA grant worth nearly $1.5 million, two TOTE cargo ships will now plug into electrical power and shut down diesel engines while docked during weekly calls at their Tacoma terminal. Also known as cold ironing, it’s a great way to reduce air-polluting diesel emissions, but has been slow to catch on. Passenger vessels at the Port of Seattle have had the shore power option for several years.
Tacoma port officials said the $2.7 million shore power project will reduce diesel and greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90 percent during TOTE’s 100 ship calls each year in Tacoma. That equals about 1.9 tons of diesel particulates and 1,360 tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.
TOTE, a private shipping company that serves the Alaska trade, contributed about $1.2 million to retrofit the two ships to accommodate shore power connections and add some of the terminal infrastructure. The port provided environmental permitting, grant administration and project management.
The EPA grant was provided under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act
(ARRA) of 2009 National Clean Diesel Funding Assistance Program. Read the rest of this entry »
Plug a Leaf into history
All- or mostly-electric vehicles are coming soon to a charging station or electric outlet near you.
Not only is the gas-free option arriving, there are some interesting and attractive choices hitting the road.
My favorite (for what that’s worth) is the all-electric Nissan Leaf, which will make its market debut this year as will the Chevy Volt. Meanwhile, the Ford Focus EV is slated to roll late next year and BMW reportedly is working on a small electric car that might launch in 2012.
“It seems that the era of the electric vehicle is finally upon us,” Esurance said in a recent blog post on the “Top 5.1 Things You Don’t Know About the Electric Car (But Should).” Read the rest of this entry »
Light bulb moment: DHL reducing carbon footprint with lighting retrofit
Global logistics giant DHL is launching a coordinated lighting retrofit program at its Global Forwarding unit warehousing and distribution facilities in the Americas region, part of an “interim target” of reaching a 5 percent improvement in carbon efficiency by the end of year.
The program initially will be rolled out in the U.S. before expanding to Canada and Mexico, the company said.
As part of parent Deutsche Post DHL and its GoGreen climate protection program, which debuted in North America last year, DHL Global Forwarding’s goal is to reduce its carbon footprint by 30 percent by 2020.
PNW flys with biofuel
Pacific Northwest aviation businesses and airports are flying together to promote aviation biofuel development in the region.
The “strategic initiative,” launched this week, includes Alaska Airlines, The Boeing Company, Portland International Airport, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Spokane International Airport and Washington State University. The “Sustainable Aviation Fuel Northwest” project is the first regional assessment of this kind in the U.S., according to a joint announcement from the group.
It will examine all phases of developing a sustainable biofuel industry, including biomass production and harvest, refining, transport infrastructure and actual use by airlines. It will include an analysis of potential biomass sources that are indigenous to the Pacific Northwest, including algae, agriculturally based oilseeds such as camelina, wood byproducts and others. The project is jointly funded by the participating parties and is expected to be completed in about six months.
Juice is juicy, gas is too gassy
J.D. Power is weighing-in with a degree of optimism on the future of electric-powered vehicles as a power behind the drive to “go green.”
A recent report from the customer satisfaction, buyer behavior and product quality rating firm says global alternative vehicle sales are rising and that sales will get a further lift when battery electric vehicles (BEVs) start to enter the market in larger numbers next year.
But while the percentage increases look good, sales on a unit basis will remain small, hardly a blip in the overall scheme of things. And this sector, which includes hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), will remain dominated by the gas-electric hybrid segment for the immediate future.
Wallenius reduces GHG footprint while delivering lots of cars
Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL), the Scandinavian ro-ro vessel operator and logistics company, cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 32 percent last year, mainly through reduced fuel consumption due to lower volumes and the use of lower sulfur fuels.
The Oslo-based WWL says it also cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 135,000 tons over the nine-year period from 2000-2009, an amount nearly equal to all of the SO2 emissions from road vehicles in the U.S. for an entire year.
The latter point is a little odd as a bragging point because WWL provides factory-to-dealer ocean transportation for the automotive, agricultural and construction equipment industries. In other words, its roll on-roll off fleet of car carriers move a good portion of the vehicles that wind-up pumping all those emissions into the U.S. each year. The company moved 1.23 million units last year by sea; it operates more than 60 “environmentally adapted car carriers and RoRo vessels” in operation on 20 trade routes to six continents.
Sinking feeling: The infrastructure challenge of water
Among the usual suspects that make up U.S. infrastructure challenges, including land development, roads, bridges and a host of other transportation needs, add water systems to the list, according to a report released this month by the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young.
In fact we are way too profligate with the way we use our water, which will soon turn into a major environmental and infrastructure problem, the report, Infrastructure in 2010: An Investment Imperative, says.
